The Secret to Playing Full Out, Part Two

In our last newsletter we introduced the secret to playing full out with a discussion about operating out of our beingness. Living from the place of knowing that we are whole, unique individuals — rather than from our egos and the perspective of having to fill up our lives with externals in order to be something — frees us to take risks and opens up our creativity. That shift in thinking allows us to play full out. What other aspects are involved in the art of playing full out?

One element is coming to the realization that we are going to die, and we are going to die incomplete. The samurai were a group of warriors who grasped that truth. Before going into battle they took time to consider the fact that someday they were going to die. It could be in this battle or the next, but it was going to happen. In thinking this way, they considered themselves dead already. They could therefore go into battle with nothing to lose, could fight without caution, and that is why they became known as the fiercest of warriors. Likewise, we must also come to the realization that our time on earth is short. Each of us is ultimately going to die, and as far as all of our plans, projects, and goals go, we will die incomplete. That incompleteness is compounded by the fact that someone is also going to do better or more than us. Knowing this helps us to let go of thinking that things need to be a certain way. It takes us out of the frame of mind of having to protect ourselves, which is a survival mode that leads only to caution, not living in full surrender to our commitment.

“Choosing it like it is” also enables a person to play full out. Often, we have the idea that there is a way things should be and that we need to wait until our circumstances line up perfectly before we really go for it. Trapped in this mentality, we hold back and don’t fully engage. The problem is, waiting for everything to be the way we think it should be before moving forward can potentially lead us into resentment and a victim mentality because as we all know, circumstances rarely line up.

A good example of someone who faced making this choice was Christopher Reeves. In 1995 this accomplished actor, athlete, and musician was thrown from his horse and paralyzed from the neck down. Reeves had always said that if he “couldn’t sail and swim and ride, then life wouldn’t be worth living.” Right after the accident he seriously considered pulling the plug. Instead, as difficult as it was, Reeves chose to live his life from a place of being already fulfilled and chose not to resist and resent his circumstances. At the point he came to a place of being able to say, “So what?” about his circumstances, he then could also say, “Now what?” That gave Reeves the option to play all out within the condition of his circumstances as they were and enabled him to eventually go on to narrate documentaries, act, write and direct, as well as raise money for spinal cord injury research.

Living with these factors in mind allows you to “choose from nothing” and surrender to your commitment, going for a path that makes a difference for you, whether that path is a relationship, a business, a car, or a cause. You can choose from nothing because you are freed from worry about whether or not you are on the right path, and you are freed from expectation about the outcome, whether you will succeed or not.

As you meditate on these principles and adopt them as your own, you will experience a shift in your outlook. Freed from fear and hesitation, you will find yourself able to play full out.